By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
The Energy Fair is moving from the Portage County Fairgrounds at Amherst again, but staying in Portage County.
The fair, known formally as the Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Fair, will be held at the home of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA), the ReNew the Earth Institute in the town of Stockton, about seven miles northwest of the Amherst Fairgrounds.
The institute is located at 7558 Deer Road, Custer, just east of Custer, and next to Heartland Stables. It is about five miles east of Stevens Point.
The fair will be held June 21-23, 2002, and is the second time in three years the event will be held outside Amherst. For its first 10 years, the fair was held in Amherst. The 2000 fair was held at the Expo Center in Madison because the association acted as a host to the American Solar Energy Society Conference for the society's annual meeting in Madison.
The fair returned to the Amherst Fairgrounds last June and posted a record attendance of 15,300, including more international visitors, such as groups of students from Senegal and Japan.
The MREA is teaming with Heartland Stables, a private facility with stables and show arenas, to provide facilities and space for the fair.
Katy Matthai, associate director of the MREA, said the organization retains its contract to hold future fairs in Amherst but decided to move in 2002 to the home grounds. "We decided to try it to see how it goes," she said.
By hosting the fair, the ReNew the Earth Institute will have the opportunity to show off its home, with its educational features. Those features include a wind machine, a grid photovoltaic system that powers a refrigerator, a solar hydronic floor heating system, a masonry heater, a straw bale demonstration wall, a rammed earth tire retaining wall, working compost bins and a native landscaping demonstration.
The Heartland Stables facility will provide spaces for workshops, and extended workshops will be held in the Education Room at the institute.
In addition to the solar arrays and wind turbine at the institute, a variety of mobile renewable energy systems will be available to power exhibit booths.
Rustic camping will also be available on the site for vendors, workshop presenters and a limited number of general fair participants. Off-site camping is also available, including at the Amherst Fairgrounds, and shuttle service will be provided from the fairgrounds to the fair site.
The institute is located on a five-acre parcel, and Matthai said the 2002 fair site will include about 25 to 30 acres. Parking space will include land south of the institute, she said.
The MREA hopes to make long-term improvements to the grounds to benefit the fair in the future, including composting toilets, solar shower house, organic gardens and solar-powered pond and fountain.